


Half truths and whole lies

by boopboop



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Everything Hurts, Imprisonment, M/M, Past Brainwashing, Past Torture, Poor Life Choices, Rampant Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 17:29:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6529357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boopboop/pseuds/boopboop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 'what if' type scenario. </p><p>Team Iron Man wins the war, and the cost is beyond Tony's ability to pay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half truths and whole lies

**Author's Note:**

> Purely rampant speculation, set after a scenario where Steve is killed and Team Cap are taken into custody. Basically I'm just being mean because I can, and because it is a Monday.

_The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies. It comes from friends and loved ones._

~unknown

 

Prison 42 is designed to house the most violent and dangerous beings on the planet. Tony is been responsible for every inch of the design, from the smallest detail to the ultimate layout. The plan for minimum necessary force is never supposed to be exceeded. Passwords change every ten minutes and patrols every twenty. There are fifty guards for every inmate, but… it’s clean. Comfortable. As humane a prison as can be designed: compassion kept in check by the knowledge that maybe one day the walls will need to hold a loved one. 

Now they hold several, and Tony can’t see anything compassionate about it. 

Barnes isn’t the only one in chains, he’s just the last to be processed. 

Wanda is already in a cell, Clint, too. They are opposite one another. Clint has been teaching her ASL, and being able to communicate is helping her cling to the edge of her sanity. Putting her back in a cage is cruel, but the NSA are terrified of her. They want to put a bullet in her head. It’s a compromise she’d had no say in making. 

Clint won’t look at him, no matter how hard Tony tries to meet eye. He’s known Tony the longest out of Steve’s broken team. There is betrayal in the set of his shoulders, no matter how stubbornly he tries to hide it. 

Sam won’t let him look away, no matter how much he wants to. He’ll force eye contact and when he does, it’s a silent condemnation for everything Tony has and hasn’t done. There’s a lot of Steve in his expression: a good man left wounded when others can’t match his standards. 

Sharon might well escape before the end of the week. She’s sat on the floor of her cell, quiet and calm and serenely terrifying. She’s ranked the least dangerous of all the inmates and it’s going to blow up in someone’s face. He wants to be there when it happens. Not to stop her. 

Without his suit, Scott looks small and bewildered. He’s been caught up in a whirlwind too strong to escape from and he’s made the wrong choices. He’s here mostly because no one trusts him not to try and break the others out if he is not contained. 

And that’s it. The key players in Steve’s rebellion: soldiers in a war that should never have been fought.

The only one left is Barnes. 

Public Enemy Number Fucking One. 

He doesn’t much look like a global bogeyman. He looks….

He looks as broken as Tony feels. Not small, far from small: he dwarfs Tony in a mountain of solid muscle and gleaming metal. But....

There’s a shock collar around his neck; the metal arm hangs limp. He’s been stripped down to his underwear and Tony can see, now, why Steve fought the way he fought. Why keeping Barnes safe was something he considered worth dying for. There doesn’t seem much difference between friendly hands and enemy ones when they march a man towards an eternity of damnation, stripped of his dignity, his autonomy, and his hope. 

It doesn’t feel like they are imprisoning a dangerous criminal. 

It feels like they are brutalizing a prisoner of war. That’s it. That's what they are doing, isn’t it? The world has found Barnes guilty, but Tony has looked into his eyes and he’s seen the truth. 

“Wait,” Tony says, desperate. Ross is one of the overseeing military Brass, one of many, and he looks across at him and nods, respect and wariness and exhaustion in his eyes. He looks like he wishes Tony were in a cell next to his friends; he looks like he wishes none of this had happened. He nods, though, willing to give Tony some small freedom: a reward for the man who apprehended all these  _dangerous_ criminals. Gratitude for his betrayal.

Tony vaults the console, feeling bones grate and bruises flare with pain and resenting the reminder that he is still alive and awake and this isn’t all one horrible nightmare.

Barnes looks at him when he stops in front of him. The first time they met, his eyes were a thunderstorm of emotions: chaos and hurt and rage and confusion and desperate, heartbreaking hope. 

The last time they had been black voids of agonized grief. Tony’s never witnessed anything like it. He can still hear Barnes’s screaming in his head and it’s almost as loud as the sound of Steve’s body hitting the ground.

Now, there is nothing in those eyes. The tormented, tortured, terrifying man might as well have died with Steve.

“I’ll find a way,” Tony says. “I’ll bring him back to you.” To all of us. 

Barnes doesn’t say anything. He’s weighed down by chains that are heavier than Tony’s whole body and his hair hangs in front of his eyes in a limp, tangled mess. 

“I will find a way to bring him back. I won’t….” He doesn’t know how to finish. Let Barnes down? Let his friends down?

Let Steve down?

Too late. All of the above, crossed off and filed for posterity. 

He doesn’t even know how he plans on making this right. Those thoughts had been easy at first. Containment. Control. Then a plea. Begging, if necessary. For Steve to see eye to eye with him: for all of this to be put right without pain, without bloodshed. Together they can do anything, right? They’ve saved the world a few times, sure they can work this out. Find a way to help Barnes and a way to curb the collateral damage they inflict wherever they go. They can do that. They can….

Steve was never supposed to get hurt. No one was, not even Barnes.  

But….

But the cryo tank set within the circular cell is of Tony’s design. It’s been a consideration all along. To put Barnes in there. For his safety. To keep him from hurting himself or others, and to keep him from being used as he has been so effectively used before. 

How’s that for humane? 

How’s that for compassion? 

He should let Barnes run. He could help him escape, help them all escape. 

And watch them be hunted down, one by one, and executed like rabid dogs. 

He should kill Barnes himself. Free him from an existence of torment: he’s not sure if it is cowardice or optimism that stays his hand. 

“I promise,” he says, the words hollow and weak. 

Barnes blinks his eyes slowly. “My backpack,” he says, startling Tony with the sudden sound of his voice. 

“What about it?”

“Did you find it?”

Tony doesn’t know, and not having the answer suddenly fills him with panic. “I-”

“We recovered your belongings,” Ross says from behind them both.

“There are notebooks,” Barnes says. “Inside. You should keep them. Please. Keep them.” There’s something very vulnerable in the words and an expectation of pain once he says them. A weakness shown and the preparation for them to be exploited.

“I will,” Tony says earnestly, trying to will every ounce of honesty and sincerity into his voice as he can. 

Eventually Barnes nods. “There’s things I remembered. About Steve. Someone should know them. Now there’s no one left.”

“Of course,” Tony whispers. “I’ll keep them safe.” He couldn’t keep Steve safe, but he can do this. He will do this. “Tell me what to do. What I can do. To make this easier for you. Anything.”

Ross clears his throat. Tony will blow the whole fucking building to kingdom come if he tries to stop them. 

He doesn’t know why he has said that, though. It’s not like he can do anything, not really, and if Barnes asks him not to let them do this to him, Tony’s heart might suffer irreparable damage. 

“When I come out,” Barnes says, looking uncertain, “make sure they do it properly? I can’t… I don’t want....” his voice trails off brokenly.

Tony’s breath goes cold when he realizes what Barnes thinks is going to happen to him. What he is asking Tony to do.

Ross clears his throat again and the soldiers start to hustle him into the cell. There are two doctors in there to make sure the cryo is applied safely, and Barnes steps into the tank without assistance.

He remembers watching them arrest Barnes, before, when Steve was at his side. He remembers how Steve had talked him down, calm and soothing and desperate,  _don't fight them, Buck, please don't fight them. I won't let them hurt you, I won't let them hurt you...._

“Wait,” Tony says, his voice sticking in his throat. “Wait!” Louder this time, and he moves forward, trying to get to Barnes, trying to stop what he has started and now cannot contain. 

“Mr. Stark,” Ross says loudly, “you are here as a guest, but you will be removed if you interfere with proceedings.”

“This is a mistake,” Tony says. “You’re making a mistake.”

“It was agreed by unanimous vote. One you participated in. This is the best place for him. It won’t hurt. He won’t even be aware of what is happening.”

They don’t know that for fact. There hasn’t been enough research into the long-term effects of cryostasis. The only person with experience enough to tell them for certain is Barnes, and there is enough resigned fear in his eyes that Tony knows it’s not as simple as they all might hope it to be. 

“I’ll fix this,” Tony calls out to Barnes as the door closes over the tank. He can’t hear, but Tony continues anyway. It’s not just Barnes he is trying to reach. “I’ll find a way.”

It takes less than ten seconds for Barnes to freeze: a lot less than it took Steve to die in the arctic. A lot longer than it took him to die from a bullet to the head. 

His bag is delivered to Tony’s door the next morning, courtesy of Ross, taped up in a box and stamped with symbols and signs that tell the world something dangerous and awful is inside. 

Barnes has surprisingly neat handwriting. That’s the first thing Tony notices.

The second is the number of entries dedicated to Steve. 

Someone should know them, that’s what Barnes wants. 

Tony sits down in the middle of the floor, notebooks strewn around him, and pries deep into the private thoughts and feelings of a man he has helped imprison. 

For Barnes, he is going to find a way to know Steve as he was, not as the world wanted him to be.

And for the both of them, he is going to find a way to bring Steve back.

He's going to fix it. 

He is. 


End file.
